


the summer of our disengagement

by okayantigone



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Daily Prophet, Dumbledore Lies, Gen, The Werewolf Prank, snape dies in the werewolf prank
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:21:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23143087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: lily evans is in her fifth year of hogwarts when her best friend in the whole wide world dies.or, the aftermath of snape's death in the werewolf prank, and how no one found out that there was a werewolf at hogwarts.
Relationships: Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy
Comments: 23
Kudos: 152





	the summer of our disengagement

lily potter’s fifth in hogwarts is just coming to an end, with the last of her owl exams already on the horizon, when her best friend in the whole wide world dies.

it’s a brutally hot summer morning in the fifth year girls’ gryffindor dormitory when marlene mckinnon shakes her awake, solemn-faced, her eyes rimmed red, and tells lily she’s wanted in the headmaster’s office.

“something terrible has happened,” marlene whispers. lily’s heart jumps in her throat.

please god, she thinks. let them allow me to stay. if the anti-muggle legislation that the ministry’s pureblood tradionalist fraction has been pushing for, she’s done for. if she has to leave this perfect, beautiful world, what will she have in gray, empty cokeworth? please, she thinks, please let me stay here, where i can be brilliant and loved.

there is no life for her in cokeworth, she knows. that’s what severus always said too – for people like them, what lives can they hope to build in a shitty little mining town in the north, where their book smarts are just something else to single them out for.

_severus!_

he’s a halfblood. she wonders how this will affect him. maybe he’l be fine if he changes his name to prince.

she rushes to dumbledore’s office as soon as she puts her uniform on. the hallways are quiet and subdued, and strangely bereft of slytherins. what on earth happened?

dumbledore is sitting behind his desk, looking for all the world, as though he’s been broken. he looks older than she ever thought he was, and heavy.

avery and mulciber are also in there. a stricken-looking narcissa black, with her shiny head girl badge pinned to her pristine robes.

she’s the only gryffindor. only student not from slytherin, actually. regulus black catches her eye for a moment, and then leans in closer to his cousin. professor slughorn is leaning against one of dumbledore’s cases, looking lost and confused.

if a bunch of pureblood slytherins are there, then it’s probably not the legislation she’d initially worried about, but she struggles to think what else it would possibly be.

“thank you for joining us, miss evans. please have a seat,” dumbledore says quietly. his voice is hoarse. she sits in one of the chairs stiffly, her eyes darting around the room.

“i suppose you must be wondering why you’re here,” dumbledore says softly. “and i am terribly sorry.”

narcissa’s hand tightens on regulus’ shoulder.

“i have some very unfortunate news to deliver about a classmate of yours, that i understand you all have been friendly with. there will be a school wide announcement, but… i wanted you to hear it first.”

lily’s heart is in her throat. the only thing they all have in common… is knowing severus. did something happen to severus?

“did something happen to severus?” narcissa black asks, her pale eyes wide and concerned.

“i’m afraid so,” dumbledore says. professor slughorn makes a terrible muted noise.

“severus snape was found early this morning at the edge of the forbidden forest. i’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you all, that mr. snape died from a currently-undetermined cause.”

lily’s ears are ringing. narcissa malfoy makes a horrible choking noise, and raises a hand to cover her mouth, her engagement ring glittering prettily in the light coming through the window. lily focuses on her shiny ring. severus can’t be dead.

“our current theory is that mr. snape was gathering potions ingredients for his extra curricular work, and ventured too close to the forest. something there must have attacked him. naturally, there will be an inquest into his death, and i plan on cooperating fully with the ministry.”

regulus has stepped up, and is rubbing soothing circles on narcissa’s back, looking absolutely devastated. she’d known severus was tutoring him in potions for extra hogsmeade money, she’d never known they were close.

avery and mulciber are both silent and shocked, seemingly communicating without words. she never liked them. she never luked severus working with them, or being their friend. they were dark to the bone.

“does his mum know?” avery asks, finally.

“mrs. snape was informed by owl post,” dumbledore says softly. “we needed her to… identify the body.”

narcissa malfoy makes another horrible noise at that. slughorn looks caguely green around the edges. lily can’t think.

“where is he?” she asks breathlessly.

“it’s not something you should see,” dumbledore says gently.

“ _bullshit,”_ lily snaps before she can hold her tongue. being angry is better than that awful horrid hollow feeling currently eating at her ribcage. “i want to –“

“no the mu – evans is right,” mulciber speaks up. “where is he? we should uh – “ he gestures vaguely.

“it really isn’t a good idea, my boy,” slughorn lays a calming hand on his current star keeper’s shoulder. “it’s … quite horrible to see. you wouldn’t want to remember your friend like that.”

dumbledore looks at them with his cold blue eyes. “no. you certainly would not,” he says, and his voice carries a tone of absolute finality.

they shuffle out of his office stone faced and quiet.

narcissa black is still quietly hiccupping into her silk monogrammed handkerchief, with regulus supporting her. he looks horribly small. he’s a third year now, lily’s pretty sure. round about there. she’s sure severus must have told her, and hates herself for not remembering.

“hey, evans!” avery calls just as she’s about to turn to return to the gryffindor common room. 

she turns around slowly. everything feels like it’s happening in slow motion. “you know snape’s lot?” avery asks.

lily nods in a haze. “we should ask his mum if they need anything,” narcissa black says decisively. for the f-funeral,” her voice breaks again. “mulciber – you write to her, wasn’t your grandmother a prince? we’ll put a vigil together here at hogwarts, after the official announcement.”

“that’s a good idea, cissa,” says regulus quietly.

lily’s mouth is open. “we are – were – all friends with sev,” narcissa says quietly. “let’s do something nice to remember him by.”

lily had always wondered why severus hung around those people. wannabe death eaters, who hate the very idea of his blood, but here they are, ready to stand by his name, even though he’s dead. she’d have thought they might like to pretend they never knew him, the strange, poor, half-blood boy. she’d oddly touched that they’re not doing that.

“someone should write to luc,” regulus says soberly. narcissa bursts into tears again.

lily feels strange for not crying. she floats back to the fryffindor common room. someone calls her name out and she ignores them. everything’s strange and empty and weird. there’s a black knitted scarf he lent her, still draped over her trunk. she picks it up. she feels like her body’s full of flitwick’s practice feathers.

she lays flat on her bed, and holds the scarf. it smells like muggle cigarettes and curry from the chippy shop down the road. she’d meant to return it after lent, but never got round to it. her and sev were seeing less and less of each other these days, as he overloaded himself with extra-curriculars, and ran around with the heirs of hogwarts’ darkest families, who sneered _mudblood_ at her in the hallways. they’d almost called her that in front of _dumbledore_ just now.

she’s pretty sure she sleeps through all her classes that day. she wakes up for dinner, or rather alice goldfinch – the seventh year prefect – wakes her up for dinner. lily doesn’t want to eat. severus will never eat again. he always complained that he hogwarts house elves just couldn’t do a sunday roast the way they did at the ole john o’gaunt pub. he was correct, of course.

alice says that’s fine. alice brings her up a plate anyway.

“the strangest thing happened,” she says. “narcissa black came up to me, asked me to give you this.”

it’s a piece of parchment sealed with the black family crest. shes’ plenty familiar with it, because it’s on every howler sirius gets from home.

narcissa’s handwriting is neat and pretty. she tells lily again how terribly sorry she is, and that she’s written to sev’s family. her fiancée, lucius malfoy, also sends his deepest condolences, and will be making it to hogwarts for the vigil. they’re all going drinking in hogsmeade after, and she’s welcome to join them, and throw one back for sev’s memory. and also, could she please convince sirius to please talk to regulus, because regulus is very upset, please, and could really use his older brother right now.

lily leaves the letter on her nightstand, and wonders if she’s really contemplating drinking with a bunch of future (or present, if the rumors about malfoy are true) death eaters, just because they’d been kind to severus once.

the vigil is that sunday, early in the morning. it’s unofficial. the teachers want to shut it down, allegedly. that’s what slughorn says. he looks awkward among them. but he’s there.

severus had always been his favorite student.

lucius malfoy is there, stone faced, one arm wrapped around narcissa’s shoulders, leaning heavily on his cane. his quidditch injury in their first year had been all the talk of the school, because it took slytherin’s team out of commission. mcgonagall had been quietly thrilled about their best chaser going down. in the end though, ravenclaw had won the cup.

of course, some people – potter chiefly among them, which is why she ignored it – claimed he’d been injured during his death eater initiation.

avery and mulciber are there, and so is regulus black. pretty much all the slytherins have shown up for their dead housemate, even a few alumni. it’s shocking to see bellatrix formerly-black-now-lestrange, with her husband. rab lestrange, who’s currently in his seventh year with narcissa is also there, looking awfully grim. andromeda no-longer-black-because-she-ran-off-with-a-muggle also shows up, and studiously ignores her sister. there’s a few ravenclaws, mostly upper years from severus’ potions study group, and a few hufflepuffs. the showing of gryffindors is weak. it’s mostly students in their year, who’d shared classes with severus. she can’t help but notice the absence of potter, which is _good_ because she’s not sure how she’d react if he did decide to show up. after years of bullying and attacking sev at every corner, he’s got no right to be there at all.

he had stopped her in the common room, to give his condolences, and seemed sincere enough, but his whole little clique seemed awfully quiet these days. it was good to know they could be serious about something. she was also pleasantly surprised he hadn’t asked her out.

they light candles and float them on the water. someone had produced a few photos of severus, and arranged them neatly, with his slytherin scarf. they’re muggle photos from his summers in cokeworth. they must have asked his mother for them. lily had wanted to write to mrs. snape, she really had. but she hadn’t known what to write. she’s sure the older woman had known about the growing distance between her and sev.

bellatrix magic out a flock of white flowers that fly up in the air, thrill beautifully, and then land in front of the photos in a delicate arrangement. most of the alumni do the same. they must have agreed to it. lily produces a single white lily, and lays it there by hand. they make some room for her to walk to the front and do saw. there’s some awkward shuffling. she stares at the candles floating on the lake. it’s beautiful. sev would have thought it’s beautiful, because he thought all magic was beautiful. and now he’ll never do magic again. his mother probably took his wand along with his body.

finally, she starts crying. at first, it’s just a soft puff of breath, and tears spill unbidden from her eyes, and then she’s cring for real, horrible, ugly crying, and if petunia was here, she’d scold lily for making a scene.

she draws in on herself, and she knows she should stop but she can’t. she’s pathetically grateful that everyone just wuietly lets her lose her shit in public without a word, until marlene wraps an arm around her shoulders and gently guides her back to the flock of students.

it’s not a hogsmeade weekend, but slughorn guides them to the village anyway, and if teachers were going to stop it, it would have already happened. they pile into madam rosmerta’s, and malfoy tells her imperiously to put it all on his tab, because they plan on getting sloshed, and no one should worry about money when they’re all grieving.

and she ignores their age, and lets them drink, pulls out what malfoy calls the good stuff, and lets them at it.

“i mean,” bellatrix is telling narcissa, “i didn’t really know him that well – or like him, for that matter – but what happened is… savage.”

“rockwood was the auror-on-duty,” says rod lestrange. “he says snape looked like he’d been _torn_ open.”

“you thinking it was a werewolf?” malfoy asks.  
  


“hardly,” rod scoffs. “there can’t be werewolves that close to hogwarts. and if it was one of greyback’s, we’d know.”

lily tunes them out after. she doesn’t want to hear horrible things. death eaters. the alumni, at least. blood purist death eaters. they might have been fond of severus, but they’d have seen people like him put to the slaughter, rather than be allowed to taint their perfect society.

she drinks on malfoy’s money, and lets alice and marlene comfort her, and cries some more, and thinks that severus would be awfully embarrassed that so much fuss is made on his behalf.

all the same, dumbledore gives her special permission to leave hogwarts and return to cokeworth for the funeral. her mother hugs her tight, and her dad looks torn, and even tuney manages to not be horrid for a while.

“what happened to him at that school?” tuney asks in a hushed whisper.

“something in the forest got him,” lily says.

the official story for the town is that it was a car accident. severus was off school grounds after hours, and got ran over in the dark. it explains the closed casket.

lily’s surprised when she makes her way to the snape house, to find lucius malfoy there, regal, and still a little pale around the edges. none of the other hogwarts students are there. those little future dark lords would never risk asking their parents for permission to attend some nameless halfblood’s funeral. all the same, malfoy shakes mr. snape’s hand, and bows to mrs. snape, and calls her _madame prince_ and tells them he was “awfully fond” of severus.

“you’re the one who bought him his funeral suit, yeah?” mr. snape asks. he’s drunk as usual, but this time lily can’t blame him.  
  


“yes,” malfoy confirms quietly. “but it was not for his funeral. i’m getting married this summer. he was to be one of my groomsmen.”

lily hadn’t known that. then again, sev wouldn’t have told her, knowing her disapproval of his darker aquaintances. she’d been rather a rubbish frend those past few months, hadn’t she?

malfoy leaves his cane behind and limps his way as pall bearer. if he’s unhappy about being among so many muggles, he doesn’t show it. his black suit is impeccably fashionable.

“if there’s anything i can do for you, madam prince, please let me know,” he says. “i have a housemate of ours overseeing the inquest. i do not believe,” he lowers his voice, “i do not believe dumbledore will be able to keep his personal prejudices out of it.”

lily can’t help but quietly agree, though, perhaps, not for the reasons malfoy thinks. dumbledore will want this over as quickly as possible, given the situation, he won’t give it the attention it needs. if this rockwood character can figure out what happened to sev… she won’t stand in malfoy’s way.

but when she returns to the wizarding world the next day, the newspapers tell a different story.

**_MUGGLE-RAISED HALF-BLOOD BECOMES VICTIM OF DEATH-EATER INITIATION GONE WRONG?_ **

****

the headlines scream.

there’s a picture of the slytherin alumni from the day of the memorial at rosmerta’s, and bellatrix saying she never liked him much in big bold letters. they’re making it look like the slytherins were having a party over his death. like she hadn’t personally seen them laying flowers at his photographs.

the pictures from his autopsy are leaked. and she shouldn’t look, but she does, right before marlene snatches the newspaper out of her hands. it’s the worst thing she’s ever seen.

dumbledore speaks some nonsense about unity, and the importance of being vigilant. he speaks about darkness rising. he side-eyes the slytherins, like he hadn’t seen narcissa break in tears over severus.

and the prophet whips the wizarding world into a blood frenzy with calls for justice against the junior death eaters who dared show their hand on hogwarts grounds. someone reminds about the incident with the chamber of secrets, and the dead muggleborn student – right around the rise of grindelwald.

she stops reading the papers.

and james potter, and sirius black go _loud_ again. 


End file.
